Frontera NorteSur
If school officials were to pick the winning word for the next grand spelling bee, the noun austerity might be their best choice. On both sides of the US-Mexico border, the ongoing economic crisis promises lean times and more out-of-pocket expenses for many parents, students and teachers.
In the violence-torn and economically-devastated Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, missing classrooms, teacher shortages and too few buses greeted thousands of students as the new school year kicked off this week.
A Chihuahua state program that provided grants of up to approximately $150 every year for students between the third and sixth grades was cut back, with academic performance levels increased in order to reduce the number of beneficiaries.
“When the check arrives, it is motivation for the children,” said Ciudad Juarez parent Pablo Alvarez Alberto.
School problems are greatest in the fast-growing southeastern section of the city, where upwards of 5000 students could go without certified teachers during the first days of the calendar year. Chihuahua state education officials blamed the teacher shortage on the late announcement of test results needed to certify educators. As a stop-gap measure, officials dispatched 76 teachers previously assigned to administrative positions to cover classrooms.
Nationwide, three-fourths of prospective Mexican teachers flunked a certification exam this summer.
As plans for the construction of 12 new schools are being finalized, many students are being taught in 70 portable units that have up to 30 elementary students in each classroom. According to a report in a local newspaper, many of the portables lack air conditioning in a city where high seasonal temperatures generally persist for weeks yet.
But some parents reported not being able to find a school for their children at all. Ciudad Juarez parent Rosa Guerra spent Monday, August 24, fruitlessly searching for a school that would admit her five-year-old daughter Itzel.
“It’s always the same thing,” Guerra complained. “There is no school, or there are no teachers or space.”
Mexico has long maintained a two-tier education system: a public one for the working class and a private one for more affluent sectors of the population. This year, however, even the private sector is feeling the bite of the economic crisis. According to Ruben Villalobos Ortiz, president of the Ciudad Juarez Federation of Private Schools, enrollment in at least 96 private schools has dipped by 3,000 students. Villalobos said offers of payment plans and discounts were not enough to halt the drop-off.
In preparation for a financially-trying year, thousands of Juarenses endured border crossing times as long as three hours last weekend to search for school supply bargains in neighboring El Paso, Texas. The mother of two teenage daughters entering high school, Maricruz Mariel de Escobar shopped for a calculator and dictionary. Mariel told a local reporter she had been buying school supplies valued at about $160 in increments over the summer, since her husband’s remittances from working in the United States did not allow the family to purchase supplies at one time.
In the United States, meanwhile, the educational system increasingly resembles Mexico’s two-tier system. Like Mexico, free basic public education has been traditionally regarded as a right in the US.
But as in Mexico, where parents are typically charged “voluntary” fees at registration time, more and more US parents are reaching deeper into their pockets just to keep schools functioning. In Tacoma, Washington, parents raised money this year to save three educational assistant positions at a local school. According to an estimate by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, states are expected to cut $350 billion from education spending during the next two years.
Perhaps the budget crisis is no more glaring than in California, once regarded as the educational leader of the United States.
At the higher education level, pay-cuts for faculty and staff, course cancellations, reduced work-study jobs, and less services are the order of the day. In a life-changing shock that is familiar to many Mexican youths who are routinely rejected by universities, thousands of freshmen are unable to enter San Jose State University this year.
The debt-ridden Golden State will grapple with two-billion dollar cuts to higher education this year, spending $8.7 billion on colleges and universities, or 17 percent less, than two years ago.
In response, protests are beginning to take shape. On Monday, August 24, workers and students at the University of California’s Berkeley campus rallied against budget cuts and tuition increases as well as against bonuses and pay raises this year for some administrators. One employee contended that university administrators were transforming the institution of higher learning, which still possesses financial reserves, into a “private corporation.”
California’s public schools are also slammed by the budget crisis. In Contra Costa County near San Francisco, teachers voted August 20 to authorize a strike. Already working without a contact for the past year, teachers were recently informed that the school district would stop paying health insurance for dependents. As the money well dries up, class sizes are going up in a school district that serves low-income African-American and immigrant students.
In a radio interview, Pixie Hayward Schickele, president of the United Teachers of Richmond, said caps have been removed on kindergarten and third grade class sizes, and as many as 40-45 students have been crammed into high school classrooms. The overcrowding could especially hurt English language learners, Schickele said.
The teacher union leader voiced deep concern that the budget crisis would impact the overall quality of education. “People are worried about safety issues,” Schickele said. “It’s going to be an issue of crowd control rather than teaching.”
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico